1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system for handling scheduled lending and self-returning of various kinds of articles to which respective RFID tags, each having a semiconductor memory device and its own antenna, are attached, such as a book, a material, a video tape, an audio tape, a Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), Compact Disc Read Only Memory (CD-ROM), a tool, a baby carriage, and a toy, and, more particularly, to a system for handling scheduled lending and self-returning of articles to which RFID tags are attached, which enables articles, scheduled to be lent, to be stored in article depositories after scheduling the articles to be lent from various kinds of article rental shops, such as a library, archives, a video/DVD rental shop, a baby carriage or toy rental shop, and a tool rental shop, enables the articles, scheduled to be lent, to be automatically lent to borrowers regardless of business hours in the unmanned state, and enables the lent articles to be returned in the unmanned state, thereby automatically performing the scheduled lending and self-returning of articles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-358573 discloses an electronic commerce system using electronic lockers, which distributes articles without directly delivering articles to customers by arranging manpower or performing physical delivery by mail or the like when the articles are sold or lent.
In the above-described system, a list of products, which are the objects to be sold and lent by registered traders, is transmitted to a customer terminal, transaction information regarding a product selected by a customer is acquired from the customer terminal, and an identification number to be utilized to provide the product is issued at the time of the transaction and is transmitted to an electronic locker and the customer terminal.
When the customer inputs the identification number to the electronic locker, an identification number stored for the product in the electronic locker is compared with the input identification number. If the two identification numbers coincide with each other, the electronic locker is unlocked.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-44755 discloses a system for receiving articles using article reception lockers, which enables a person, who cannot go shopping to a store during business hours, to receive a product, ordered over the Internet, etc., from a locker installed in a store, thereby enabling a user to purchase products at a low cost without worrying about the time of day.
The above-described system includes an order receiving and processing unit for checking whether a product and a locker are available when a store machine receives an order from a user terminal and for issuing an order number and a password and transmitting the issued order number and password to the user terminal and a locker controller if the product and the locker are available, and a locker management unit for managing the states of locker chambers of the reception locker and assigning a locker chamber to the ordered product.
Further, the locker controller stores the order number and the password while associating the order number and the password with the number of the locker in which the corresponding product is stored, compares an order number and a password input by a user with the stored order number and password, and unlocks a corresponding locker chamber when the order number and the password input by the user coincide with the stored order number and password.
In addition, Korean Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-2004-0052847, the invention of which was invented by the present inventors, discloses a system for handling scheduled lending of articles, which enables a user to borrow an article scheduled to be lent in an unmanned manner from an article depository after scheduling the lending of the article.
In the above-described conventional systems, none of the locker, the locker chamber, and the article depository (hereinafter referred to as an “article depository”) has a function of checking the validity of the deposit of an article in the article depository by itself. Therefore, there is a problem in that, if the operator of the article depositories mistakenly puts an article in the wrong article depository, all of the article depositories must be opened in order to find the article depository in which the corresponding article was placed in order to correct the mistake.
Further, there is another problem in that the system cannot be effectively utilized because the sold or lent article cannot be sent back or returned.